


Aristophanes' Myth

by etspes



Series: Aristophanes' Myth [1]
Category: Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF, Historical RPF
Genre: Ancient Rome, Angst, F/M, Falling In Love, M/M, Politics, Sex, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-26
Updated: 2010-04-26
Packaged: 2017-10-09 04:36:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/83116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etspes/pseuds/etspes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You are going to have me, then? What would the people of Rome say," Octavian mused, "if they knew their princeps was in the bed of their beloved general, and moreover, that he was beneath him?" Agrippa kissed the hollow of Octavian's throat, tracing light circles with his tongue, and then he muttered,<br/>"They would say that you are a lucky bastard is what they would say."</p><p>It would have been easier to love their wives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aristophanes' Myth

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has taken on semi-epic proportions in the making, and for that I apologize (but only a little). I hope it's worth reading.  
> Comments/criticisms are always welcome.  
> Si deis placet, the princeps and his general will never know.
> 
> I have tried to cover as much time as I could while still remaining accurate. I realise there are some anachronisms, and in part that's because there's little information on some of the subjects in question. Please feel free to correct anything you notice is glaring, and I'll do my best to amend it. There are some swaths of time that are skimmed or skipped over, and that in part is due to them not really being all that relevant, and/or to me wanting to keep this fic shorter than ninety pages.
> 
> Dates are in AUC (ab urbe condita) rather than BCE/CE.
> 
> Read on!

**Aristophanes' Myth**

 

            The first time was at sixteen, over Aristophanes, which they weren't actually supposed to be reading; the tutor had designated it worthless for the education of young men. But as young men will, the two of them defied the tutor and set a small fire and sat, reading _The Frogs_ aloud to each other. Agrippa's Greek was badly accented, not nearly as fluent as Octavius' own, or as Maecenas' would be later, but he was undeniably funny. Octavius was laughing at Agrippa's wildly exaggerated facial expressions, eyebrows wiggling and hands gesturing as he described the scene, instructing him to do this or that. Agrippa's expression faded long before Octavius' laughter did, and had he had any control over how he came to be in front of Octavius, thumbs tracing the boy's cheekbones, he would have remained safely on his side, reciting brakakakaxkoaxkoax instead of trying to become the Greek he was reading. But as it was he was on his knees in front of Octavius, the brawny one of the two professing his girlish desires, he was vulnerable, and asking long, slim, pale Octavius—Octavius! The little sickly one!—to raise him back up again. But instead Octavius stood and walked off, leaving Agrippa wondering what in the name of Pollux he had been thinking. It seemed to him that if he had kept a secret as long as he had, there was no reason he should not have been able to keep it longer. He sat there, on his knees, until they ached and went numb and the fire sputtered out, with his forehead in his hands.

Octavius did not speak to Agrippa for a number of days, as was his custom for dealing with people who had upset him. Since Octavius was perfectly happy to throw himself into his books and ignore Agrippa entirely, this would have pleased the tutor to no end, had it not distracted Agrippa further. The separation didn't last all that long; Octavius had apparently decided to put it behind him, because seven nights after the first incident, they were reading _Clouds_ by a fire, and Agrippa stayed on his own side of the fire, making faces and reciting terrible Greek as Octavius cackled and stage-directed, Agrippa happy to comply. The tutor was horrified by the state of them the next day; both were purple under their eyes, and Agrippa's tunic was a disaster (Octavius' in perfect order as always), but both of them were making an effort to pay attention again, so he could say nothing. It was as though, the tutor would observe to himself later, the two of them shared a certain amount of attention between the two of them, and if one was completely focused, the other was totally lost. They worked best, functioned best, in harmony.

 

The second time didn't make any more sense and was only slightly less awkward. This time it was over the _Symposium_, which the tutor had decided it was necessary for them to read, and Octavius was nothing if not fond of philosophy. So rather than _Lysistrata_ by the fire, two of them finally did something of which the tutor approved—for a while—and debated Plato's philosophy far into the night. Aristophanes did arise, and Octavius was scornful—what, he argued, would be the purpose of having a soul-mate of the same sex when nature demanded that men marry women? Agrippa listened uncomfortably and would possibly have retorted if he hadn't, taken suddenly by some capricious god, abruptly decided to make his point actively rather than argumentatively. The kissing itself was a shock, because Agrippa had not, before that moment, intended to do it, and Octavius undoubtedly did not expect it. So Agrippa's mouth moved uncertainly over Octavius', whose fingers fluttered like butterflies at his friend's cheeks, and when Agrippa had pulled away from him, completely inscrutable, Octavius stood and left once more.

Agrippa would have stayed all night again, except that the tutor would surely have noticed, and there had been difficulty involving beatings the last time Agrippa hadn't paid enough attention. So he went to bed this time, determined to forget it and pass it off to too little water in his wine. The next morning, to his extreme relief, was normal.

That night, Octavius kissed him back, all arguments about men versus women aside; there were hands and tongues and sighs, and they swore they would tell no one.

They were successful at keeping the secret for several weeks primarily because neither of them knew how to behave. From that point, it was clearly impossible to go back to _Frogs_ and fires, but neither was it something they could discuss, aside from their own personal pact. Certainly Atia would not have been proud to hear that her son was becoming pathetic, and Agrippa was not about to announce to his father his desire for his _comes_. So they danced around each other, touching furtively as though it had been an accident, jumping when their skin brushed, until Agrippa threw all caution to the wind and cornered Octavius in a wooded area.

The smaller boy had scrapes on his back from the tree for a week afterward, and Agrippa's legs were not pleased for some time about the method he had chosen, and both of them blushed a dull red for days. In retrospect, Agrippa was surprised that nobody mentioned it—perhaps, Octavius suggested later, it was that nobody had noticed. Who would have expected that the two sixteen-year-olds would have been fucking each other against a tree after lessons in the middle of the day? After all, nobody saw anything they were not expecting to see.

 

The dispatch to Apollonia came as a relief to both of them, because they did not consider that perhaps being under the noses of the Illyrian legions would be stricter than being under Atia's pointy one. But as it turned out, the soldiers took little notice of their sneaking, and nobody said a word if they noticed anything strange. The structure of the area had fallen apart after Alexander's death. The military was strong, but the organization wasn't enough that anybody bothered to pay attention. And so as time went on, they became bolder with each other, less insistent upon hiding, and Octavius became less resistant to his own needs. Agrippa had never been so grateful for their education, that he could whisper philosophy into his friend's ear and feel Octavius' slender limbs soften to his own sturdier ones. A month passed, and two, and three, and Agrippa was still often the one sneaking into Octavius' pallet, but he wasn't complaining, because Octavius was willingly making room for him. He exhausted his body during the day training, perfecting his agility, his reactions, his body, so that he could use it to please Octavius in the black of the night. It had become habit that Octavius would whisper in his ear, asking how he had the energy for such things after he fought so hard in the day. The answer, which Agrippa never actually gave him, was that the nights made him feel alive enough for the dawn.

Everything turned over in the fourth month.

Martius arrived, and the _ides_ came and went uneventfully. Several days before the _kalends_ of Aprilis, it was becoming warmer, flowers blooming, and the boys were discovering the miracle of Macedonian fruit when the message came that Octavius' Uncle Gaius had been stabbed and was dead. Suddenly the whole camp was in upheaval. Advice flew from all directions: Octavius was to go straight home. Octavius was to gather an army. Octavius was to make immediately for Macedonia. Octavius, Agrippa argued, was to seize the moment and march on Rome.

Octavius was, actually, to curl up and cry.

Agrippa was unsure how to deal with this; it was not as though Caesar had been present in Octavius' life all that long, or that recently, but he supposed the boy had respected the man, and Caesar was the only one who had expressed any faith in Octavius anyhow. So he rubbed his shuddering lover's back and ran his fingers through his hair and tried to whisper comfort, and in the end he gave up and simply held his friend. It was a long night, and Agrippa's arms ached by the time the sun rose, Octavius still tucked against him, face still streaky and red, but peaceful.

In any case, Octavius decided to go home immediately, and everything turned over again. He found, upon his return, that he had been adopted by his uncle, that his name had changed, and everything started to go to hell from there. It was not so much that Agrippa fell out of the story so much as he was rerouted, as Octavius rerouted himself. He had suddenly plunged from being a boy in training to having to be a man in control of far too many factors. Agrippa swore to keep up.

Octavius—now Octavian—made friends with Lepidus and Antony to avenge the death of his "father," tried to pacify Rome, and remarkably, was married a year later to Antony's step-daughter: by all accounts a full plate. Agrippa marched with Octavian and his new ally Antony up to Philippi to take care of Brutus and Cassius. And then there was no time. Octavian was gone to Gaul, leaving Agrippa in Rome to deal with Pompeius' pompous little son, which he did with all good haste. Octavian, back at Rome soon enough, was pleased with the development and tired of his wife, and Gaius Maecenas employed himself to arrange Octavian's second marriage.

 

Agrippa's turn to leave for Gaul came when Octavian's daughter Julia was still in her infancy, little long after the marriage had begun. He said nothing when Octavian told him; instead he stood and accepted it and nodded his head, and Octavian kissed Agrippa's cheeks before he left, as was proper, and Agrippa fancied that each one had lasted longer, perhaps, than was strictly necessary.

Gaul, as it turned out, was cold, and the tribesmen barbarians, although the grapes were good. The Aquitani put up a fight, but not enough of one to resist Agrippa's sheer skill and determination, and the missive that arrived in 716 was an enormous relief until he read its contents.

_            Gaius Caesar Marco suo,_

_Romam est statim rediendum consulatum acceptum inter annum DCCXV._

_Te egeo._

            Agrippa's blood ran cold reading the summons. He was twenty-five. The minimum age for holding the consulship was forty-three. And yet Octavian needed him.

He read the slim scroll until it ran soft and crumpled beneath his fingers, and then he departed from Rome with such haste that the slaves assumed someone had died. And indeed had someone, he could not have left any faster. He arrived in Rome in record time, and, told by Octavian's doorman that the triumvir was too busy to see him, Agrippa returned to his own home to await further instruction. When, a week later, Octavian finally opened his door to his old friend, there were brief embraces, several glasses of wine and some victory stories recounted in great detail, and Agrippa watched the lines beginning to appear on Octavian's still-young face disappear as they creased into smiles. It had begun to feel like it had seven years prior—had it really been seven years? His old friend sat before him, laughing at his stories, reacting in the appropriate places. Perhaps things had just become so hectic, so overwhelming, so quickly that negligence had been a consequence and not a warning. Then Octavian leaned forward and explained his business.

The recent dealings with Sextus Pompey—or Magnus Pius, as the nitwit called himself—had been a fiasco, and Octavian needed Agrippa in the consulship to oversee the next military dealings. He could not, Octavian professed, do it alone. Agrippa studied him for several long moments, and it did not appear that Octavian had even thought that Agrippa had hoped the other man might simply have wanted him back in Rome, to be near him once more. But as it was, the opportunity would be enough, and of course Octavian was right when he flat-out announced that Agrippa was the best at what he did. So Agrippa held out his hand and accepted, and Octavian clasped his palm between his own two, and he offered him a triumph for the work he had done in Gaul.

It was a feat in itself that Agrippa stayed himself, controlled the immediate urge to wrench away—a triumph was of course something any Roman general would have giving his left foot to receive, but this one felt soiled somehow, and Agrippa stood.

"Of course not," he said. "This is not a good time for you. How uncouth a friend I would have to be to celebrate my own victories at the expense of your time when there are many other things more pressing than this? My time in Gaul is a gift to you, my friend." He watched Octavian's face soften, and when the time came for goodbyes, Agrippa took Octavian's slender jaw in his own broad hand and kissed him hard before he turned to walk out the door. He did not know if he shook with nerves or fury or some bittersweet sadness, but he suspected it was some combination of the three.

He walked home.

 

Messina fell to Agrippa that year, as did the next battle with Pompey the Puny in the following year, and the man still would not run with his tail between his legs. Agrippa was married just a year following that second battle, to Caecilia Attica, and not long after he left his marriage bed warm to set sail for Naulochus. This defeat of Sextus Pompey (persistent bastard) was decisive and final. The second attempt was Agrippa's alone, and Naulochus fell beneath his practiced hand; seventeen ships were his, and Pompey sank into Asia Minor for someone else to find. Agrippa liked sea battles; there was something about the sting of salt, the roar of men hauling spikes up the masts, the crashing of the waves, that felt particularly fitting. His throat would be raw from shouting and his eyes burning by the end, his body exhausted, and to stand over the battle as master of seas and men was a powerful thing. And though he treasured the beaked crown he received as reward—a rare prize, to say the least—he would have much preferred simply to go home. Instead there were two years abroad, little skirmishes, nothing to write home about, years that felt like wading from one incident to the next.

It certainly was not that Agrippa resented being sent abroad, nor did he dislike being charged with the armies. There was a certain thrill in marching out to battle, and the four months' hard training through which he had forced himself in Apollonia was a boon to say the least. It had become force of habit, at this point. He ended problems and then skirted into the backwoods to clean up the messes. And he was, by all accounts, excellent at it. Octavian played politics, and Agrippa executed them—he was well aware that as clever as Octavian thought himself, Agrippa was the necessary mastermind. They worked as much in concert as they ever had; each was simply alone for his part now.

He moved from place to place, and had he had more of an historian in him, the time would have been valuable for more than the conquests he made. But he went to his ever-moving tents weary, streaked with grime, with nothing to liven him from the beatings against his body. He stood at each battle site, triumphant, and he heard in the cries of his victorious men the praise of a single man at Rome, and he longed to go back.

 

He did finally get his reward of time, for a while. Agrippa was elected aedile, and while he played the political game that was becoming so familiar to his friend, he saw much more of Octavian. His life was a different place: of games, of spectacles, of the bustle of the people at Rome. There were many evenings spent with Octavian and Maecenas (Jupiter knew where Octavian had found that hedonist, treaties notwithstanding), discussing the fate of the triumvirate now that Lepidus was gone. Maecenas, for his part, didn't seem particularly concerned with the spiralling mess into which Rome was plunging—rather, he would bring bits of poetry to read as the nights got more wine-soaked and Octavian got more fervent about his plans. Plots were hatched and lands conquered, lovers joined and cloven in the space of Octavian's bedchamber during that year, and Maecenas the joyful puppet-master of much. He delighted in the intrigue. Agrippa was not terribly taken by Maecenas—as Maecenas seemed put off by Agrippa's enthralment with the frenzied peril of his own lifestyle—but the benefit of the poof was that he also didn't seem bothered by Agrippa's enthralment with Octavian.

Some nights Maecenas, frequenting some party filled with poets (and presumably other distractions as well), was unavailable, and these were the nights Octavian gave in. Every now and again, Agrippa did not return home, claiming inebriation, preferring to send a slave to inform Caecilia. One such night, Octavian—who seemed never to sleep, but rather to spend all his time on plans and aspirations—made a proclamation which Agrippa took much to heart.

Leaning on his elbow, teetering over Agrippa, a childlike smile lighting up his face, Octavian described his vision for the city, his plans for Rome: to make it as great as it once had been. Antony would have to be dealt with, of course, but he had no doubt of his own and Agrippa's ability to ensure that, and then…then!, he insisted, then he would take the city of brick that Rome was now and make it a city of shining marble. It would be beautiful, he whispered, drawing plans on Agrippa's bare skin with the tip of his finger—there would be temples built, aqueducts repaired. A rotunda, Agrippa suggested, dedicated to all the gods? and Octavian grinned, believing.

Thus Agrippa began to build. Gardens were laid for beauty, aqueducts for practicality, baths for a gathering place of the people. Octavian watched this with a smile in his eyes, and Agrippa's heart, though he had always yearned for the wildness of battle and the uncertainty of that life, was at peace.

But a year is not so long, and when it came to a close, Octavian withdrew. The situation with Antony, who was in Greece, had come to a head. Octavian had read Antony's will to the people and turned Rome's ever-fickle face toward himself, and a conflict was broiling. There was no more of Maecenas' leisurely musing and Octavian's grand plans over wine. Indeed, Agrippa saw Octavian only once at any length outside of the haze of feverish planning.

 

On that occasion, the sun had well set and Agrippa was slightly drunk when he reached his doorstep. He'd rolled nothing but canis and had had a little too much to drink to make up for it. As though there wasn't enough to do that he could indulge, but damn it, he wasn't a politician anymore, and the projects he'd started were going up just fine without his constant supervision. It was Saturn's day, and he was feeling moody. Rome could wait on him. Zeus knew Agrippa did enough of his own waiting.

The door swung open more promptly than usual, and Agrippa was greeted with a great clamor of female voices and the pale face of his usually stolid doorslave. A young, fair slave skittered across the hallway, her head down, jogging the year-old Vipsania at her breast, making hushing noises to the screaming child. A deeper voice shouted from within the house, "By Castor and bloody Pollux, would you make that child shut up!" Agrippa watched the proceedings in silence.

"What is going on here?" he said finally, quietly, not bothering to look at the doorslave. The slave bowed his head.

"With all respect, master, the mistress has been in your bedroom for some time. She weeps, my lord." Agrippa's head snapped around.

"Why does she weep?" The doorslave wrung his hands.

"Sir, her father has lived." Agrippa swore. He was suddenly and uncomfortably sober. Quintus Atticus, Caecilia's father, had been ill for some time. He had become such unexpectedly, inexplicably, and while Agrippa made it a point to have care given to him, but Atticus fussed at having to be cared for. Caecilia, of course, would have nursed him had she been home, but her father insisted that her duty was to her husband and daughter, and he was correct. Cicero had been gone for a long while already, or Agrippa was certain that the round little man would have been at his friend's bedside unceasingly. Vah. Caecilia would be a mess.

He strode past the doorslave, his half-undone sandals slapping at his calves, and he made to his wife with all haste. The slaves were all gone, and she sat on a low chair on her own, her hair destroyed, in a frizzy mass around her head. Her face was red and swollen, and his heart ached as he took her in.

"What happened?" His low voice sliced through the sobs and she answered without looking up.

"He hadn't eaten for five days." Agrippa paused.

"Intentionally?" He expected the answer. What a way for the man to die. He had been a philosopher to the last, then.

"Of course." Her voice was sharp. "Of all men, you expected my father to suffer longer than he had to? And without his Cicero." She shoved her hands into her hair, pulling at it as her voice cracked. Agrippa sank to his knees before her, but she shoved him away.

"Go away, Marcus." He couldn't bring himself to do it. Instead, his hands fluttered at her elbows, his big, useless hands hovering at her cheeks, desperate for something to do, like pinned up butterflies, but he was useless on his knees before her. Finally, she rose above him, eerily calm. He stared, bleak, at the floor as Caecilia called for her _ancillae_, as the news worked its destruction through him—Atticus had been a good man, and a good father-in-law. But as she began to leave the room, leaning on her slave-girl's shoulder, Agrippa surged to his feet and bellowed. Caecilia would be destroyed by his loss, as she had been by Cicero's, but Pluto could burn if he was going to lose his wife over this.

"CAECILIA POMPONIA." She stopped but did not turn.

"Yes."

"I am your husband." The rage poured through the discomfort and the helplessness, and he suddenly felt sick. "I am your husband, and you will be comforted by me." Her body, if possible, grew stiffer, and she turned slowly.

"Marcus, my father has lived. I will be comforted by those whom I wish to comfort me. I will consult you about his burial." Her eyes flickered to his feet and back up to his face. "You should go see your Gaius Caesar. He will most certainly wish to know of this development." There was no reason Octavian would wish to know; he had had little tie, if any, to Quintus Atticus. Indeed, Agrippa may have been his only one. Agrippa's hand flashed before he could stop it, wrapping bone-breakingly tight around Caecilia's upper arm. Her shoulders bowed forward with the force of it and she flinched, but her face showed nothing.

"Leave me, Marcus. Go to Caesar." And she would say nothing further, however he yelled or beseeched. Her hair hung limply in her face, and she simply stood in his grasp like a rag doll in flickering darkness. At the end of it, he pushed past her, and she sank against her slaves, trembling quietly—though with what emotion he did not know—and barely felt the chilly summer-night air bite into his skin as he fell out the door. He had not actually intended to end up at Octavian's door, and he was truly surprised to find himself rapping his knuckles raw on the rough material.

A bleary-eyed Octavian swung his own door open, his eyebrows rising almost imperceptibly at Agrippa's presence. But he was Octavian, ever prepared, ever decorous, ever in control, and he stepped aside.

"Marcus."

"Gaius. You should sell your doorslave." Agrippa fairly tripped over his own exhausted feet entering the villa, but he followed Octavian through to the triclinium, where several dining couches stood as though awaiting him. Agrippa fell onto one, and Octavian arranged himself on another across from him.

"Perhaps, but most guests arrive in the daylight hours. I imagine he was not expecting to be answering the door. What brings you here at this hour of the night?" His voice was almost formal, devoid of curiosity, as though it were a pleasantry, with no trace of accusation. Agrippa looked up, finally met Octavian's eyes, and Octavian must have read the desperation in his face, because he softed and came to sit on the other couch. His hand flickered over Agrippa's knee.

"Pomponia must be sick with worry over you. Marcus, you must tell me how I can help you. What have you lost?" The bile rose in Agrippa's throat as he realized his friend must have thought he'd lost at knucklebones or somesuch.

"Nothing she doesn't already know about," he said with forced numbness. Octavian sat back.

"I don't comprehend you." Agrippa dropped his forehead into his hands.

"Atticus is gone." Shock rose in Octavian's eyes.

"Pomponianus Atticus? Is Pomponia well?" The defeat was thick in Agrippa's response.

"You ask as though it matters, friend. She does not wish me there."

There was a beat of silence before tentative hands on his shoulders.

"Marcus. I'm sorry. Do you…wish to yell?" Agrippa nearly laughed. Had it been an hour ago, yelling would have been all he wished to do, would have been all he could have done. He would have yelled until his throat was bleeding, until he yelled only sounds where words should have been. But now…now the gentle hands were pulling him in, and he was so damned exhausted, so tired, so sick, and he felt himself collapsing. It could not possibly hurt to rest his head. Those long hands felt so familiar, so good. And so slight Octavian's slender knee pillowed the great general through the first watches of the morning. His palms smoothed wide circles over the ridges of battle scars beneath the tunic, and he waited while Agrippa slept.

Agrippa awoke to a familiar ache in his back, and for a moment he expected to open his eyes to a tent. But there was instead a plate of bread and grapes beside him and a dining couch beneath him, and he lay disoriented, his head pounding, for several moments before he recalled the humiliation of the previous night. He was on his feet in a matter of seconds, hardly noticing as the platter of grapes clanged on the floor, scattering fruit to be crushed beneath his feet. Octavian was not in the immediate vicinity, nor did he appear as a chastened-looking doorslave rushed to swing the door open for Agrippa's passage before Agrippa did it himself.

Caecilia did not give Agrippa so much as a glance from red-rimmed eyes when he entered. At last, she offered a cordial, flat, "I trust you slept well." Agrippa yanked his sandals from his feet before he seated himself, waiting for a slave to provide the customarily light breakfast of the sort he had ignored as Octavian's guest. He did not answer the question, preferring not to admit that he had sought company in the place his mourning wife had suggested. Instead, he responded evenly,

"It is my hope that you have sufficient company at Rome, Pomponia. I believe I will be abroad again soon."

The incident was not mentioned again, either by Caecilia or by Octavian, and very soon, by his own request, Agrippa was wind-whipped at sea once more. Rome held no delight for him, empty of lovers and family. Caecilia moved bleakly around, the wisdom of his father-in-law unavailable, and Octavian so busy and harried that speaking to him was like trapping the wind. His marriage faded, his wife faded, and things began to end at home.

And so, finding himself empty-handed at Rome, he instead gathered Methone, Corcyra and Patrae. He met with Octavian at Actium and the two sat for hours, long after any food had been cold. Octavian stood, gesturing at the sea. Antony, he argued, was a coward. The naval blockade was not enough to stop the man; he was going to break through and be free, and then where would Rome be?

"Free of him?" Agrippa stretched out his legs, leaning against the back of the couch in Octavian's tent. Octavian's face reddened. They had not come this far to let the bastard slither back to the East with his Egyptian whore. Agrippa exhaled. They had to fight now, he said. Antony was weak; there was little he could do to stop Octavian's powerful forces.

The fight raged through the night, Octavian lecturing Agrippa, Agrippa slamming his hand against the table and shouting at Octavian. The lighter ships could simply chase Antony's heavier ones down, and when Antony's own men saw what a coward, how unroman their leader had become, they would surrender at once; Octavian was still the idealistic fool he'd always been, and men who were desperate enough to come this far were not going to turn at a flash of cowardice. No, Octavian must strike just after the storm, when Antony had fewer boats and little morale. Then they would win, and the coward would be shown for the slave he all but was; Agrippa was taking too many risks with the army and did not comprehend the gravity of the situation; Octavian did not comprehend the army itself.

In the morning they stood facing each other, tunics askew and hair and eyes wild, but Agrippa had won. On the fourth day before the nones of Septembris, the ships sailed. The raging had not been for nothing—Rome was indeed soon won from Antony, as had been predicted. Agrippa laid the victory at Octavian's feet with his compliments, his chest tight, not daring to hope that perhaps gratitude and pleasure might win him something greater than some fleeting ovation. After all, Octavian had only to be distressed that the Egyptian queen Cleopatra—she was not that beautiful, Agrippa mused; only her eyes held any interest, although they were quite brightly startling in her dark face—had deprived him of the opportunity to parade her through the streets of Rome. The rest was prettily laid out for him.

For his dedication, Octavian rewarded Agrippa not, as Agrippa would have hoped, with his own affection, but with the hand of his niece, which the general could hardly refuse. He accepted with grace, his new wife as faceless to him as Caecilia had become at the end. He tore her from her mother's arms on an overcast day in June, and he demanded her forename, hardly listening as she called herself Marcia to his Marcus. He untied the knot of Hercules at her waist, and he went through the motions of marriage.

It was empty for him, as Rome was empty for him. His wife was a warm body and little else. His friendships were no longer a question; the pleasant companionship that had once been so present was gone, and the triumphant _vir_ (no longer one of three) hid either behind his door or his toga. Between Octavian's navigation of the now-treacherous waters of Roman loyalty and Agrippa's own incidents with Marcellus, the two moved farther and farther apart. Had he been able to bring himself to part from Octavian, he considered, perhaps he would not have had to do it so often.

The hope had been to remain in the city, of course, fond memories of that year before the mess flitting through at distracted moments, and the two consulships that followed Actium seemed to point in that direction. But things had changed, and it was painful to remain. There had been, of course, a celebration of sorts over the terrifying sea battle near an inconsequential town in northern Greece, and Agrippa had been Octavian's guest of honour. The night ended—as nights do—and his expectation (hope, perhaps), had been to follow his friend drunkenly, laughing, to a bedroom, to relive the nights of their seamless youth. Octavian, however, had spent the aftermath of the evening chatting with politicians. He had been overjoyed by the idea that he could stay in the city, to be with his companion, and yet Octavian seemed to have lost all need for him but the practical. _Even the dearest friend_, he wrote to himself, _can only stand so much_.

The consulships were flurries of politics, harried planning, and the final erection of the Pantheon he had promised what seemed like millenia before. It stood proud, and the marble gleamed cold in the sun. The dome curved toward the heavens, an eye in its crown for the shafts of Apollo, and to welcome the gods. The sculptors hammered uneasily under Agrippa's sharp eye, tracing out

 

_M·AGRIPPA·L·F·COS·TERTIVM·FECIT_

 

carefully immortalizing his name. He finished the year, arms folded, the city—once a rural little band of farmers afraid of its hill neighbors—behind him, becoming the city of marble Octavian had been determined to make for himself.

The moment the fasces touched the ground, relieving him of the burdensome title, he was gone for Gaul. The place had not gotten less cold since he had last been there, nor the people any more civilized, and taxes were never an easy system to implement. Neither was setting up government for barbarians. Had they bothered to have some form of their own government, it might not have been a problem; at least they would have understood the concept. But with all these tribes running around, not even befriending one another, well, stability was at risk, and something needed to be done. There was nothing to be admired about those people.

Still, the little uprisings were nothing, mere target practice, especially when Agrippa reminded the hooligans that he was putting in aqueducts and roads—those little niceties never failed to help. It was only a year, however, and then he left for Lesbos. For him, it was none too soon. It was explained to few at Rome, though rumours certainly flew. Many speculated that Octavian's newest wife had seeded jealousy in Agrippa's brother-in-law Marcellus over the influence Agrippa seemed to bear over the _princeps._ Agrippa did not bother correcting the notion that he had any influence at all anymore and instead occupied himself with ignoring the silence from Rome's highest by reading letters from his legate in Syria.

The Parthians, as it turned out, were not partial to returning the standards they had taken from that glory-hungry pumpkin Crassus, nor did they seem inclined to be governed by anyone even slightly more intelligent. Parthians were a damned sneaky people, and Agrippa found himself up later and later at night, devising plans to subvert them and having them sent at all possible speed to the legate. The troops were restless, wondering what Octavian's—or rather, Augustus'—largest body of soldiers were doing improving their Greek and dipping their feet in Lesbian hot springs when they could have been putting down the pesky Parthians once and for all. Eventually, Agrippa ceased to mention all communication with Syria and instead put his men through the paces, knowing that even if he were to be gone, his troops would need to be prepared. There were plenty enough of little uprisings in Greece to be tended to, and the men exercised their exertions and frustrations on anyone idiotic enough to tempt them. The rest of the time, the exquisite, harsh mindlessness of the marching, the running, the building, was almost enough to keep Agrippa diverted. He went days without shaving. There were no letters from Gaius to Marcus for months.

 

            When one came, however, Agrippa recognised the spiky hand and knew what Octavian wanted even before he'd read why he was supposed to come home. Marcellus had died, which didn't bother Agrippa a great deal, but Octavian seemed to think it was excuse enough for Agrippa to return to Rome. He could not, the _princeps _wrote, do without Agrippa's expertise at home. He desired to have immediate acquaintance with his general.

Agrippa stared blindly at the lettter. He worried the papyrus as he had before, much longer this time, although he knew that out of both duty and friendship he would be sailing for Rome within days. This time, the nerves sparked out of fear rather than pleasure, and he was on the verge of dreading seeing Octavian again. Of returning, of offering what was not wanted. _Immediate acquaintance. _So he steeled himself, and a slave packed for him, and they left for Rome four days later.

            He made a list, on the long and horrifically rocky trip to Italy (the slave was sick all but two of the days), of the many things he had accomplished since he and Octavian had been sent to Apollonia, and the list numbered many. He had honours never before bestowed; he had subdued peoples and been the saving hand of his homeland more than once, surveyed the empire and made its center more glorious in stature and in spread. When it came down to it, he supposed, there was no reason to either fear or hate Octavian, when there was nothing they could have expected from each other to begin with that they had not already given. Both men were married, both with children, and both with much to their names. By Jupiter, Agrippa had the empire in the palm of his hand, the beloved lieutenant of the first man at Rome. There was little else either one could ask.

            He would have been much more comfortable with the thing if he had managed to convince himself.

            This time, at least, would be slightly different, since Octavian had requested that Agrippa stay at his Palatine house with him. The house, Agrippa knew, was beautiful. The gardens were extensive, and there was a spectacular temple Octavian had had built after Actium. Something about a lightning bolt. If nothing else, if Agrippa were unable to sleep, he would have a number of ways to occupy himself until the dawn saw fit to grace him with her light.

            The journey between the port of Brundisium and Rome seemed much shorter this direction than it had going the other way, when Agrippa couldn't get out of Italy fast enough, and consequently over-thought every bump in the road. This time, dreading his friend, it seemed they had arrived at Rome in hours instead of days. Agrippa sent his weary slave home and, scruffily, proceeded to the Palatine himself. It was the middle of the night.

 

            Octavian welcomed him with open arms—quite literally. He opened the door himself and embraced Agrippa upon seeing the broader man filling out his doorframe. The _princeps _was as thin as ever, strong and willowy as a reed in wind, and just as elegant against Agrippa's own solid bulk. Agrippa did not allow himself to wonder how it was that Octavian had known he would appear that evening, but it was good, he grudgingly admitted to himself, to see his friend, despite everything. There was an almost immediate switch in his own demeanour; the moment the door opened, he let go of his fury. They were going to be friends this evening, boys from childhood, not a _princeps_ and his staid general.

            "I have been remiss," Octavian announced, having apparently reached the same conclusion independently. "I have not written to you, nor have I indicated that I would welcome your correspondence. You must think I am a wretch." He stood aside to allow Agrippa in and demanded from a slave nearby that he bring a bowl of warm water so that his guest could wash. "It is good," he added softly, when the slave had gone, "to hold you in my eyes again. How was the journey?" As Agrippa talked, discussing the journey and the past year, what was going on in Greece, and the reports he'd received from the legions in Syria, mentioning in passing his wife, Octavian strode toward his bedroom, Agrippa following.

            "A glass of hot wine, I think, would be good this evening, don't you?" he said over his shoulder, and Agrippa, momentarily distracted from his report, indicated assent.

            "A good glass of wine is always welcome, you know that."

 

            It was in fact several glasses of wine later, when the room was warmer and both men much more at ease, that Octavian peered at his friend over the top of the cup balanced in his hand.

"Do you think about your marriage, friend?"

Unkempt eyebrows climbed slowly up Agrippa's forehead.

"No. I live in it daily; there is little thought to give," he said warily. "Do you of yours?" Octavian steepled his fingers.

"Not the way you mean, I suppose. I've had two wives already. I _have_ a wife now. I'm certainly not contemplating taking a fourth. But—"

Agrippa was not in the mood for a philosophical conversation, and he interrupted.

"Unlike your names, eh? You've managed to acquire another one of those. Very clever of you recently. The people seem to love you." Octavian looked briefly surprised and then shook his head.

"Some of them do. It's good, isn't it? It has something of an air about it." His slender shoulders straightened just the slightest bit, even as he mocked himself. Agrippa smiled slightly.

"Augustus." He looked his companion up and down. "Doesn't really fit you, Gaius. It seems too grand. An Augustus would need to be…broader, I think. A bigger man than yourself." He gestured at himself. Octavian stared for a moment, and then blinked.

"A bigger man?" A real smile twisted Agrippa's wide mouth as he leaned forward, balancing his elbows and his cup on spread, easy knees.

"Indeed. _Parvus puer_." A sputtering laugh burst over from Octavian.

"_Puer!_ As though we hadn't grown up together. Never forget, Marcus—you are a mastermind, but what would you do without me?" Agrippa contemplated his togate companion.

"It is not so much what I would do without you, Gaius, as what I would do with you."

Octavian's deflation was visible, almost palpable. Agrippa watched, entertained,  as the invective that the cogs of the _princeps_' brain had been churning was sucked up by the Muses as quickly as they had lent it to him. Then he seemed to collect himself, draw himself back up, rearrange the folds of his toga; the slightly haughty expression he always wore publicly now that he'd acquired his most recent _cognomen _dropped like a veil over his eyes. Agrippa waited patiently.

"_Di immortales_, Marcus, straighten your tunic. You look like a war-wearied disaster all crumpled like that. If you cannot wear a toga, at least look presentable."

"I am in your bed-chamber, Gaius," Agrippa pointed out mildly, "and as you mentioned, I have known you since you were scrawny and pea-sized. You are hardly going to judge me." Besides, he _was_ a war-wearied disaster. Lesbos had been relatively peaceful, but certainly not perfect, and it was not as though he hadn't been in battle after battle for the fifteen years leading up to that. And now, on his recall, he would be standing in front of troops once more. Octavian would have to become used to this dishevelment. But he stood and shook out the knee-length hem of the tunic so the thick purple lines raced down either side of his body instead of twisting, as the other man had noticed, across his thighs. Just then, the door creaked, and Agrippa spun, feet braced, toward the disruption. But it was merely a slave, and Octavian laughed heartily at Agrippa's disturbance. Lifting his chin, he called to the young, still smooth-jawed man,

"More wine, and extra water in Agrippa's. He is becoming too drunk too quickly." The slave moved swiftly; Agrippa's eyes followed him across the room, and the amusement was evident in Octavian's voice when he said,

"Do sit down, Marcus. The boy won't hurt you. The wine can only help." Reluctantly, not taking his attention from the silent slave across the room, he re-took his seat, tunic straight. Octavian gestured with his head.

"Take off your sandals. There is no need for formality here, as you said." Agrippa looked at him incredulously.

"And yet you sit here _togatus_, your sandals firmly on your feet, and you have just admonished me to rearrange my tunic for you. Make up your mind, Gaius; I cannot be everything." Octavian tilted his head.

"Is that so?" He did not argue, nor did he address Agrippa's dissatisfied complaint, but again gestured at the sandals, and Agrippa grunted and bent to slide them off. The slave moved to Agrippa's side with a fresh bowl of wine, efficiently removing the first, and doing the same for the _princeps_. Agrippa held his breath, waiting for Octavian to admonish the slave that he, Octavian, should be served first, but his friend did not seem to be paying a great deal of attention to either the wine or the slave. Rather, he was examining Agrippa intently as the general raised his bowl to his mouth, and said abruptly, "Caesaris, you will tell Britannicus to shave this man in the morning when he rises. It is of course too late now, but he looks scruffy, don't you think?" The slave, Caesaris, waited, clearly too well-trained to answer, and Octavian waved his hand dismissively.

"Go. Tell Britannicus."

Agrippa, sprawled in his chair with his ankle now over his knee, raised an eyebrow at Octavian and passed his hand over the beginnings of a scruffy beard.

"Shave me, eh? You don't like the longer hair?" Octavian scoffed.

"Don't be ridiculous. The people of Rome will see you. If you come out looking like you're fresh from battle, what on Earth are they to think? That you are in mourning? You lost your civilization in Greece, my friend. Drink your wine." Agrippa grimaced.

"Far too much water."

"You prefer it unmixed?"

"Certainly not. But stronger might be nice. It is a good wine, Gaius; you have become prudish since I saw you last. Has it been that long?" Octavian narrowed his eyes briefly in thought.

"Perhaps not. Perhaps that much has simply changed."

"Oh?" Octavian inclined his head.

"Things are different at Rome nowadays, friend. There has been this mess with Murena, Apollo knows how _that_ happened, and I have been ill, as you know—I was prepared to hand my ring over to you. It is time to think about these things. I am forty years old. The empire was in a sorry state when all this started, and if it lives, it is because of these things I have done. I am slowly bringing back the old customs, the togas. Rome has not been at war recently, and that—well, you remember the days of my father." He held up a hand when Agrippa looked as though he were about to interject. "Things are the way they are, Marcus. Julius was a good man, but he threw things into turmoil, and truly handing the state back over would result in disaster. It's time for me to think about how to keep it breathing. I have come too far to let it shudder and die now. If I have to be Rome's _pater_, so be it; I shall. And its children may hate me, or they may revere me, but at least they will be around to do it." Agrippa sat back.

"You have truly come into yourself, haven't you, Gaius?" He shook his head and chuckled. "I remember you hiding in your tent from battle. And look at you now." He waited for the icy fury to take over; Octavian had ever insisted that he hadn't been hiding, but Agrippa had been the one who had held his head as he vomited on the floor of his tent, shaking in a cold sweat, the one who had announced to the troops that Octavian was ill. But there was no fury. Octavian simply gazed at him.

"It is done what must be done." Agrippa nodded slowly.

"So it is. So it is." He regarded his old friend for a while longer and then said, "I have heard about this poem being written. Romans as masters of the Earth, eh? The race that wears the toga?" A smile played half-shamefacedly across Octavian's features.

"Yes, well, he is a spectacular poet, even if he has some…interesting things to say. The poets have been upset with me, it seems. Horatius Flaccus thinks he is particularly sneaky. He is not, of course, but let them say what they must. After all, if I tell them which words to use, they will be far less believable—and far angrier. And then we will have much more than Murena on our hands." Octavian stood, adjusting the complicated folds of his toga, and held out his hand.

"Come, kiss me, and then to bed with both of us, I believe. It is late, and you have travelled far recently." Agrippa rose to his feet as well and embraced Octavian, kissing each of his cheeks in turn, and Octavian held his friend close for a brief moment and then at arm's length.

"It has been too long," he said, his voice laced with regret. "But we shall make up for it, hm? You will be at Rome for a long time to come, I suspect. Maecenas will want to see you, I'm sure, tomorrow, and then there is much to do." The laugh that burst from Agrippa was half-bark.

"Yes, I'm sure Maecenas will want to see me tomorrow." He muttered under his breath. "Artsy ponce." Octavian arched a brow but said nothing, expertly manoeuvring Agrippa to the door instead.

"_Mane_, Marcus. I shall have the slaves bring you breakfast, and Britannicus will shave you. Good dreams and good sleep." Agrippa watched Octavian retreat into the dark of his room, certain the other man had not meant, or perhaps even noticed, his own pun.

 

Reasonably, Agrippa's expectation was a heavy night's sleep, a good breakfast in the morning and an apparently much-needed shave, if he was to present himself to the people of Rome as the victorious general Octavian seemed to think they needed. He fell asleep quickly, grateful, without even allowing himself to be undressed by the slave who waited patiently at his door. This turned out to be a mistake: his expectation, or lack thereof, had been wrong.

His expectation was _not_ the interruption he got hours still before the first watch. Octavian was silent, devious as he ever had been, standing beside his bed as the moonlight poured through Agrippa's window and played off of Octavian's fair skin. He was stock still, his legs braced sturdily, his head tilted, as though he were bathing himself in Selene's pale glow, and Agrippa woke more from the odd feeling of being watched than from any noise Octavian had made. He managed to contain the alarmed jump with which he would normally have reacted, had it been any other man beside his bed, but he had got used to this once—though it had been a long time. So he did not at first let Octavian know that he had woken, aware that the other man would simply wait until Agrippa had realised he was not alone. Instead he observed: Octavian was not as young as he used to be, that was true. His skin was loose in places, and he was thinner than he should have been, as a result of his illness. But he stood proudly, and he was still as beautiful as he had been when he wept against Agrippa's bare chest the night he heard of Caesar's death. Agrippa rolled to face Octavian, and Octavian glanced down at him.

"Good evening, old friend," he whispered, and Agrippa shifted his body over to make room.

"Join me?" he murmured softly, as though inviting the _princeps_ to an informal meal. Octavian's mouth quirked.

"Certainly." He sat on the edge of the bed, swinging his legs over, and he was suddenly, immediately, pressed against the length of Agrippa's entire body, and Agrippa shuddered against him.

"It _has_ been a long time." Octavian rested his head against Agrippa's shoulder, his slender fingers playing across Agrippa's back, ever the puppet-master.

"Some things do not change." He bit Agrippa's shoulder lightly, and the beast roared inside the general, something taking over that he had not felt for twenty years, freer of the political disaster to which he had committed himself by loving this man. Octavian was quite suddenly pinned, and his eyes were bright and amused beneath his eyelashes.

"You are going to have me, then? What would the people of Rome say," he mused, "if they knew their _princeps_ was in the bed of their beloved general, and moreover, that he was beneath him?" Agrippa kissed the hollow of Octavian's throat, tracing light circles with his tongue, and then he muttered,

"They would say that you are a lucky bastard is what they would say." Octavian's body shook with laughter, and Agrippa smiled against his skin.

"Oh, is that what they would say? Imagine. I have more power than any other man in this empire, and yet…" He raised his arms over his head, and Agrippa clasped his wrists, pinning them down. "And yet," he continued, "I am completely powerless with you. How ironic."

"Not ironic at all. You are play-acting. This is as a philosophy book to you, my friend. You know how you always wanted Rome to work, and you are trying everything you ever read upon it. And because it is you, it is working. They look to you, certainly, but _you_ would still hole up in your library with your Aristotle if you had a choice, wouldn't you?"

"There are few choices anymore, Marcus. The Fates have taken us where they will, and we must play to them now."

"You had a choice tonight, Gaius, and you came to me. Forget about Rome for a moment." Octavian arched under Agrippa's studied ministrations.

"Yes." His voice faltered, broke, and he whispered, "_yes._"

The room was silent briefly but for the harsh intake of breath when one man did something right, as the pair of them learned to fit together again. There was a rhythm, Agrippa remembered, that they had established when they were young. Sometimes, Octavian would kneel by his bed and wait, wait just as he had done tonight, for Agrippa to cotton to his presence, and then to quicken underneath his touch. Other nights, Agrippa would slip onto Octavian's pallet, and he would kiss his friend just below his ear, which never failed to wake him, and Octavian would respond immediately by touching Agrippa—his shoulder, his chest, his waist, tracing the lines of his muscles as both boys grew and filled out. Octavian had always had incredible hands, long and slim and dextrous, and he would—as he was doing now—run them up Agrippa's sides in long, slow lines to watch his body curve with the chills it brought, and it brought Octavian's body into sharp contact with his own as he arched. It had been a power struggle then, as it was now—a subtle one, as each of them fought with himself to give up his own control. Octavian had never been terribly good at it, and Agrippa found himself spending night after sleepless night trying to coax his lover's slim body into letting go, into enjoying what was being done to him, and yet the young man had always retained some semblance of the stoic control he so prized. Octavian's body had grown older, and he had clearly come to terms with himself and who he was intended to be, and he had been through three wives and multiple children already, but it had not allowed him to let go any better than he did when he was eighteen. And yet Agrippa still held his wrists tightly in his grasp, pinning his hands over his head, watching the young man he knew first and foremost as his own completion writhe beneath him, tilt his head back, the slight curl in his hair becoming wilder as his skin became slick both with arousal and with his attempts at resistance. Agrippa was fully awake now, completely intent on his task, and he let go of Octavian's wrists to slide down his body and kiss his belly, dipping his tongue into his navel, to blow lightly across the straining erection between his partner's legs, and to hear Octavian's voice crack as he begged. It was a strange kind of pleasure, a satisfaction of sorts, vindication, perhaps, and Agrippa refused to comply, rolling off and ceasing his attentions.

Octavian opened foggy eyes, turning his head to look at Agrippa in surprise. "Why did you stop?" His voice sounded much younger than it had when he had demanded earlier that Agrippa rearrange his tunic. Agrippa folded his hands across his chest.

"I'm still wearing my tunic, Gaius." Octavian glanced over him in mild surprise.

"So you are. Take it off." Chuckling, Agrippa shook his head.

"You take it off." Octavian sat up.

"What's going on?" Agrippa heaved himself up as well, drawing his knees up to drape his forearms lightly across them.

"You're using me," he said simply. "You didn't even notice I was still dressed. You remember being carefree, being a young man, and I am a reminder. Livia knows where you are, of course. She's not a stupid woman. I wonder if she knows why." There was an ire rising in Octavian's eyes, and Agrippa watched him as he shoved it down.

"You have been away for a long time," Octavian said, controlling himself. "You do not understand how things are anymore. I shall forgive you for that. You are not a habit, Marcus, nor are you an escape. I came to you because you have been my lover in many ways, and you are dear to me. Do not undermine that." Sighing, Agrippa stretched out his legs and scrubbed his palms across his knees.

"I will not take you, Augustus." Octavian reeled back.

"Do not call me that." Agrippa looked at him intently.

"Why? That is how you came to me, is it not?" Octavian sputtered for a moment, and then Agrippa said softly,

"But if you want me, I am yours." Octavian shut his mouth. "If you want me," Agrippa repeated. "I have always been yours, since we were boys, since we were first friends. Before I ever touched you, I was yours, and you have never been mine. I will not play that game anymore. You have never been one to hand over control; you were not when we were boys, and you certainly are not now. You may have me. But you will have to claim me. I won't chase after you. I will not fuck the _princeps_ of Rome. I will be your lover. But that will have to be up to you. Gaius." Octavian sat through this short speech silent, incredulous, his hands twisting endlessly in the bow of his knees, but when this last crossed Agrippa's lips, he moved like Jupiter's own lightning. The tunic was very abruptly on the ground. His hands, his gorgeous hands, were on Agrippa's chest, pushing him backwards; he was moving astride Agrippa's hips, and suddenly they were both eighteen again instead of a forty-year-old battle-weary general with grey streaks through his hair from the harrowing uncertainty of his own life, instead of the forty-year-old head of the Roman empire, with lines creasing his forehead and his eyes from the frowning, concentrating on skirting the tripwires that laced his every step.

They were eighteen as Octavian's mouth came down on Agrippa's, finally kissing him, as his tongue traced a sweet line across Agrippa's bottom lip, asking him for entrance; as the pads of his fingers outlined areolae, pinched them, as he drew his fingernails sharply across Agrippa's chest and felt him shudder. Agrippa's breath hitched, his hands scrabbling for purchase, pulling them closer as Octavian stretched out across him, covering his friend's body with his own.

"I have loved you," he whispered, and Octavian's forehead rested on Agrippa's chest briefly before he continued his ministrations, brushing his mouth over every battle wound from the past fifteen years which he could find to heal.

"I know. I have never doubted it."

There was a small bowl of olive oil beneath the bed, which Agrippa had no doubt Octavian had requested be put there, in anticipation specifically of this, but he could not even find the wherewithal to chuckle until Octavian murmured against his thighs, "It's from Lesbos. They tell me it's the best." And then the laughter that burst from his chest started low and combined throatily with Octavian's own rising mirth, dark and full.

"It seemed appropriate at the time," Octavian gasped, and Agrippa quaked with laughter.

"I'm sure it did." Moments later, when Octavian dipped his hand into the oil and drew it across his own skin, then swiping his finger lightly under Agrippa's navel, settling himself between Agrippa's legs, the laughter was all but dead, breath short and laboured. And as they finally came together, as Octavian finally gave himself over to claiming his own as his own, Octavian murmured, "I would not be here without you." Agrippa curved his hands around his lover, pulling him closer, farther in, and murmured, "No, you wouldn't." Octavian snorted.

"You're very humble."

"And you're inside me. Shut up." Octavian thrust against him, and Agrippa dug his fingers in.

"I'm telling you…" Octavian breathed deeply, felt the slide of Agrippa's erection against his belly, closed his eyes against the image, and started again. "I'm telling you that I have never…_epol_, oh, Venus, take me—" Agrippa was tracing the shell of Octavian's ear with his tongue, kissing his jaw, and Octavian yanked away, pinned Agrippa's hands as had been done to him, and held his face centimetres away from his lover's.

"I am telling you," he hissed, "that I have _never_ taken you for granted." There was little after that but the sounds of coupling, the harsh whispers of arousal and the sharp reactions to pleasure.

They would lie there together that night until the first watch, and Gaius would rise before Britannicus came with rolls and fruit and the razor for Marcus; they would not be found this way, and Augustus would return to his wife, dignified and assured. There would be little left of the boy who had awoken to make love with the only one who had always been there.

He would think on this, as he watched his own daughter marrying Agrippa two short years later, that he had had three wives and two fathers and many children, and that all of them would walk away. He would think on this when he banished his daughter, at the deaths of each of the boys whom he had raised as an heir, as he laid Agrippa himself to rest eleven years later, and as Agrippa's son departed Rome, exiled, for Planasia. He would remember this thinking on Rome's decline, on the pain it must suffer as partners torture each other with inattention and infidelity.

This would be the last time they would be together like this, and he would think on his three wives, his fathers, his daughter, his adopted children, his legions, and all he had lost, and he would recall the accusation Agrippa had cast: that Octavian himself had never needed Agrippa in the same way. And as he demanded that his own mausoleum be his lover's final resting place, he said goodbye. He stepped away from the house of stone and mortar which bore the only one Octavian had ever needed, and he left Gaius there with his friend in hopes that perhaps Agrippa's shade would know. He stepped away from the mausoleum, and it was on that day in 740 that he truly became Augustus, and he never looked back.


End file.
